The Deputy of Arcis | Page 8

It was not until after
the death of that king that the Comtesse de Cinq-Cygne was able to get
Michu appointed judge of the court of assizes in Arcis. She desired of
all things to obtain this place for the son of the steward who had
perished on the scaffold at Troyes, the victim of his devotion to the
Simeuse family, whose full-length portrait always hung in her salon,
whether in Paris or at Cinq-Cygne. Until 1823 the Comte de

Gondreville had possessed sufficient power over Louis XVIII. to
prevent this appointment of Michu.
It was by the advice of the Comte de Gondreville that Colonel Giguet
made his son a lawyer. Simon had all the more opportunity of shining
at the bar in the arrondissement of Arcis because he was the only
barrister, solicitors pleading their own cases in these petty localities.
The young man had really secured certain triumphs in the court of
assizes of the Aube, but he was none the less an object of derision to
Frederic Marest, /procureur-du-roi/, Olivier Vinet, the substitute
/procureur/, and the judge, Michu,--the three best minds in the court.
Simon Giguet, like other men, paid goodly tribute to the mighty power
of ridicule that pursued him. He liked to hear himself talk, and he
talked on all occasions; he solemnly delivered himself of dry and
long-winded sentences which passed for eloquence among the upper
bourgeoisie of Arcis. The poor fellow belonged to that species of bore
which desires to explain everything, even the simplest thing. He
explained rain; he explained the revolution of July; he explained things
impenetrable; he explained Louis-Philippe, Odilon Barrot, Monsieur
Thiers, the Eastern Question; he explained Champagne; he explained
1788; he explained the tariff of custom houses and humanitarians,
magnetism and the economy of the civil list.
This lean young man, with a bilious skin, tall enough to justify his
sonorous nullity (for it is rare that a tall man does not have eminent
faculties of some kind) outdid the puritanism of the votaries of the
extreme Left, all of them so sensitive, after the manner of prudes who
have their intrigues to hide. Dressed invariably in black, he wore a
white cravat which came down low on his chest, so that his face
seemed to issue from a horn of white paper, for the collar of his shirt
was high and stiff after a fashion now, fortunately, exploded. His
trousers and his coats were always too large for him. He had what is
called in the provinces dignity; that is to say, he was stiffly erect and
pompously dull in manner. His friend, Antonin Goulard, accused him
of imitating Monsieur Dupin. And in truth, the young barrister was apt
to wear shoes and stout socks of black filoselle.
Protected by the respect that every one bore to his father, and by the
influence exercised by his aunt over a little town whose principal
inhabitants had frequented her salon for many years, Simon Giguet,

possessing already ten thousand francs a year, not counting the fees of
his profession and the fortune his aunt would not fail to leave him, felt
no doubt of his election. Nevertheless, the first sound of the bell
announcing the arrival of the most influential electors echoed in the
heart of the ambitious aspirant and filled it with vague fears. Simon did
not conceal from himself the cleverness and the immense resources of
old Grevin, nor the prestige attending the means that would surely be
employed by the ministry to promote the candidacy of a young and
dashing officer then in Africa, attached to the staff of the prince-royal.
"I think," he said to his father, "that I have the colic; I feel a warmth at
the pit of my stomach that makes me very uneasy."
"Old soldiers," replied the colonel, "have the same feeling when they
hear the cannon beginning to growl at the opening of a battle."
"What will it be in the Chamber!" said the barrister.
"The Comte de Gondreville told me," said the old colonel, "that he has
known more than one orator affected with the qualms which precede,
even with us old fire-eaters, the opening of a battle. But all this is idle
talk. You want to be a deputy," added the old man, shrugging his
shoulders, "then be one!"
"Father, the real triumph will be Cecile! Cecile has an immense fortune.
Now-a-days an immense fortune means power."
"Dear me! how times have changed! Under the Emperor men had to be
brave."
"Each epoch is summed up in a phrase," said Simon, recalling an
observation of the Comte de Gondreville, which paints that personage
well. He remarked: "Under the Empire, when it was desirable to
destroy a man, people said, 'He is a coward.' To-day we say, 'He is a